Saturday, August 20, 2016

Just found an emotional letter I wrote to my mom on the day
I turned 45 back in 2013. It was a difficult letter to write as we had not really
spoken or communicated at all since my divorce was finalized earlier that year.
In fact, since my estrangement from my family in the summer of 2012, things
were tense between me and my parents. My mom and I had grown distant. This letter
was my attempt to begin a conversation that would hopefully bridge the gap between us.

It wasn’t an apology letter or a defense of my actions. I simply
told her how I’d been feeling and about how hard it was to go it alone, without
the emotional support of my mom or dad. Knowing that they’d only heard one side
of the story, I didn’t attempt to counter it, per se, I just tried to get my
mom to walk a mile in my shoes. She was upset and hurting for my girls. She
grew up the child of divorced parents, so it killed her to see her
granddaughters hurting. And believe me, if I could’ve sheltered them from that
pain, I would have.

At any rate, mom didn’t see things the way I did. She’d been
married to my father for 45 years at that time. She never really thought
divorce was an option. I was the third child of hers who went there. I hated
that I let our differences of opinion cloud my judgment and keep me from
speaking to her. In 2013, I didn’t call to wish her a happy birthday or a happy
mother’s day. That guilt was weighing on me so heavy by the fall that I sat
down on my laptop and wrote from my heart.

I don’t remember verbatim the phone conversation we had a
few weeks after she received my letter, but it didn’t seem to hit its mark. I still
didn’t feel that she was hearing my heart or understanding where I was coming
from. But, at least, we were finally talking. That was the main thing. My letter had started the
conversation.

It continued in the spring of 2014, when after moving to Tallahassee
to be nearer my girls, my parents came down to Florida for Spring Break with my
sister and several of their grandkids. I took my two girls over to Panama City Beach to visit with
them even though their Tallahassee Spring Break had ended a week or two earlier. I sat
poolside with my mom and engaged in a very difficult conversation where I tried
to clarify some of the points of my letter. Mom was hearing me with her ears,
but I still wasn’t getting through to her heart and it was frustrating for me.
I nearly left in tears. I did leave my girls with them and return to
Tallahassee to resume my search for work. At least, that was my excuse for
leaving. I was having no luck reconnecting with my parents on a substantial
level and I left there very disheartened.

They brought my girls home before heading back to Indiana
that April. In June, I’d receive a call from mom that would bring me to my
knees. She called to inform me of her aggressive cancer diagnosis and to tell
me that she wouldn’t be fighting it medically. She resorted to prayer and,
short of a miracle, was going to succumb to the cancer, and leaving the outcome
in God’s hands. To say that I was shocked and devastated is an understatement.
It shook me to my foundation. She couldn’t leave me with our relationship still
in turmoil, so I determined to get up to Indiana as soon as I could.

Once my girls were out of school, they were able to go stay
with their mother who was working for nine months in Colorado. I drove the
aging Volvo up to Noblesville, Indiana, and spent six weeks that summer in mom’s
basement. That was her literal basement, not figurative. I had begun to work my
way out of her figurative basement by then. Plus, her terminal illness, I
believe, had her ready to re-evaluate her assessment of me and open to listen
with her heart.

That summer of sadness had many bright spots, like the long
conversations we shared on her back porch, where I poured out my soul and she
listened without judgment. We didn’t always find common ground, but I knew for
certain that she was finally hearing my heart. Like I told her, “You’ve known
me for 45 years! You know the kind of person I am, the man inside. You raised
me. We grew up together.” And so there was much healing that came to our
relationship on her back porch that summer.

I left there with my girls in tow. They’d flown in from
Colorado to see their Grammy and get the devastating news direct from her lips.
It was a bittersweet trip for us all. But I left there feeling so much relief.
Years of physical separation and emotional distance were removed and the chasm
between us swallowed up by understanding, grace, forgiveness and love.

I will always and forever cherish that summer as a priceless
gift bestowed upon me. I was able to follow with trips to Noblesville that
Thanksgiving, and three visits to Cicero, where she moved in 2015, before she
died. In fact, my daughters and I were at her Cicero home the morning she died
following Thanksgiving last year.

I will never, ever regret writing that letter on my 45th
birthday. It was the beginning of a new love between my mother and I and a new
chapter in our relationship. I’m so glad I ran across it on my laptop today even though it was difficult to read. I
miss you mom and always will. I love that we understood each other on such a
deep level. It was a great joy to grow up with you and to be your oldest child,
witness to so many of your joys and sorrows. Thank you, God, for the time of
healing and reconciliation we shared 2014-15. Rest in peace, Mom.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Just finished the first draft of a 22-page short story, working title, "Nips, Rube & Stein."

Here is an excerpt...

The last thing
Rube remembers about his father are the words he uttered after they had just
buried Rube’s best friend, Nips. “He was just a dog, son. Dogs are a dime a
dozen.“

But Nips was
the best thing that had happened to him in his 10 years on Earth. A mongrel
mutt he found in the woods at the end of their road, Nips had been Reuben Edwin
Schwartz’s companion and confidant the last four years. His father, a
non-religious man, had named the dog Rabbi as a joke. Rube called him Nips for
his aggressive disposition toward strangers. He’d bark and nip at the heels of
anyone he didn’t trust. Now that he was gone, young Rube felt lost. It marked a
major turning point in his life.

Rube’s father,
Ben, was a hard man with a penchant for booze and for women. All he knew was
that his father upped and left one Sunday in 1974 and never came home. The
plain truth was that his mother had finally had enough with his Vodka-infused
debauchery. A well-known adulterer, Ben had squandered any chance of
reconciliation with Mary Schwartz, so after years of neglect and emotional
abuse, she kicked him out. Rube missed his dad, but he missed Nips even more.

Never had a boy
found a better friend. He and Nips went everywhere together. Sometimes Henry Rollins
Hicks would tag along. A stuttering, African-American boy, Henry Rollins befriended
Reuben at school, where they were both bullied as black sheep. Rube’s family
was the wrong religious persuasion, even though they were not practicing Jews,
and Henry was simply the wrong color. Rube knew that Henry Rollins was alright
when Nips, untrue to his nickname, went right up to the frightened boy and
licked his hand. It was the first stranger Nips hadn’t nipped. That told Rube
all he needed to know about his newfound friend.